[From plastic surgery to space conquest. First microsurgical procedure and first surgical procedure in man during weightlessness].
The authors present their experience of surgery in weightlessness conditions. Russians and Americans already focused on that subject but two questions were still unsolved: what was the limit of human skill in these extreme conditions and was it possible to operate a human under total safety? Between 2003 and 2007, using a 0G plane for our experiment, we focused on two goals: firstly, the conception of a microsurgical module to test complex microsurgical procedures in rats and secondly, the construction of a surgical workstation with specific air filtration device and define surgical and anaesthetic protocols to carry on a surgery in man. In September 2003, we succeeded to perform the microscopic report of a 0,5mm artery (which is the smallest we can suture in terrestrial conditions) by using seven stitches of 10 x 0 monofilament suture. The 27th of September 2007, we removed a lipoma from the forearm of a 47-year-old man. These experiments take place in a wide program of development of telesurgery controlled through satellite transmission with all forthcoming civil, military and humanitarian applications.
Martin
D
D
Service de chirurgie plastique, reconstructrice et esthétique, chirurgie de la main et microchirurgie, CHU de Bordeaux, place Amélie-Raba-Léon, 33076 Bordeaux cedex, France.
de Coninck
L
L
Pinsolle
V
V
Delia
G
G
D000818:Animals; D001160:Arterioles / Q000601:surgery; D005542:Forearm; D006801:Humans; D008067:Lipoma / Q000601:surgery*; D008297:Male; D008866:Microsurgery / Q000379:methods*; D008875:Middle Aged; D051381:Rats; D017208:Rats, Wistar; D012584:Sciatic Nerve / Q000601:surgery; D012983:Soft Tissue Neoplasms / Q000601:surgery*; D013026:Space Flight; D013623:Tail; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D018474:Weightlessness Simulation